Interview Skills: A Practical Handbook

Puntos clave

• A one-page prep sheet with the role's needs, your matching stories, two questions and the logistics is the whole procedure for most interviews.
• Build a story bank of eight to ten examples tagged by skill so you and your teenager stop rewriting the same evidence for every application.
• Run a timed mock interview at the kitchen table with a fixed rule: the interviewer only asks, the candidate only answers, and feedback waits until the end.
• Each format, phone, video, panel or task, has its own short checklist, and running it the day before removes most avoidable failures.
• Debrief every interview in writing within an hour, and debrief your child by asking what they noticed before saying anything about how it went.

Dentro de este bit

1. The one-page prep sheet

   Every interview you or your family face can be prepared on a single sheet, and the sheet is the same whether it is your promotion panel or your daughter's first internship. Divide the page into five boxes.

2. Building a story bank you can reuse

   Writing new examples for every application is the biggest time sink in interviewing, and the fix is a story bank. Open a document with a table of four columns: a short title, the skill or skills it proves, the story in five sentences, and the result in numbers or plain facts.

3. Running a mock interview at home

   A mock interview is the single most effective rehearsal, and it works at the kitchen table if you follow four rules. First, set a timer for twenty minutes and stop when it rings.

4. A checklist for each interview format

   Formats fail in different ways, so each gets its own short checklist run the day before. Phone screen: a quiet room, a charged phone, the prep sheet and a glass of water in front of you, and standing up if it helps your voice.

5. Scripts for the awkward questions

   Some questions need a prepared script rather than improvisation, and the script is short. For salary, state a range that starts at your researched market figure and say you are flexible for the right role.

6. The follow-up file and the family debrief

   The procedure after an interview takes an hour and pays back over years. Within that hour, write a debrief note with four headings: questions asked, answers I was pleased with, answers to improve, and facts I learned about the role.